Clip of swimming pool shaking from quake filmed in Nepal 2015, not New Zealand 2023

This article is more than one year old.
Published on March 22, 2023 at 07:47
3 min read
By Devesh MISHRA, AFP India

Old footage showing swimming pool water sloshing dramatically from side to side has been shared with a false claim that it shows an earthquake that hit New Zealand in March 2023. The video was actually taken during the deadly quake that devastated Nepal in April 2015.

"Imagine what #earthquake can do. A strong #EarthquakePH of 7.1 Magnitude hits #NewZealand today. #Tsunami alerted in kermadac (sic) island," reads part of the caption to the video posted on Twitter on March 16, 2023.

The 20-second clip -- showing water rising inside a swimming pool while people around appear to panic -- has racked up over 200,000 views.

It circulated on the same day the US Geological Survey reported a magnitude-7.0 earthquake near New Zealand's Kermadec Islands.

The islands are mostly uninhabited except for a government conservation field station.

The country's National Emergency Management Agency said there was "no tsunami threat to New Zealand" following the earthquake.

Screenshot of the false post, taken on March 16, 2023.

The video has been shared with similar claims on Facebook here and here and on Twitter.

However, the clip was actually filmed during a deadly earthquake that hit Nepal in April 2015.

Nepal earthquake

A Google reverse search of video keyframes followed by keyword searches found the same footage uploaded to YouTube on April 25, 2015.

"Earthquake on Kingsday of Summit Hotel Kathmandu April 25 2015," its caption reads.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false posts (left) and the 2015 YouTube post (right):

Screenshot comparison of the video in the false posts (left) and the 2015 YouTube post (right).

A powerful earthquake on the day reduced buildings to rubble in Nepal's capital Kathmandu and killed more than 2,500, AFP reported at the time.

The disaster was considered at the time the worst to hit the impoverished Himalayan nation in more than 80 years.

British online newspaper The Independent also published a screenshot from the same clip in a news report about the Nepal earthquake on May 12, 2015.

Images of the Summit Hotel Kathmandu posted on the travel website TripAdvisor also show the same swimming pool seen in the clip.

Below is a screenshot comparison showing corresponding elements in an image uploaded on TripAdvisor (left) and a frame in the video (right):

Screenshot comparison showing corresponding elements in an image uploaded on TripAdvisor and a frame in the video.

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